24-hour pizza party people

Every so once in a while, I get a craving for pizza I have to order 24 hours in advance.

There are all kinds of reasons why this shouldn't work. I can hear the prevailing arguments now:

"When I want a pizza, I want it immediately."

"I don't even know what I'm having for lunch today, how can you predict what you're hungry for a whole day in advance?"

"When I say immediately, I mean yesterday."

I hear all these arguments. And I understand. But they pale in comparison to the experience of actually calling up 24 hours and placing your order, then dealing with the feelings of anticipation, which linger for the whole day.

And where does one find such a pizza? Sodexho at Big Bend Community College, of course.

"We have a set amount we prep for our student dining service, and we need time to go ahead and prep anything other than what we pull for the day," Big Bend Community College General Manager of Food Service Dale Yates explained. "We usually like at least two hours, and it just depends. The problem we run into is we do a lot of catering here also, so if it hinders with that, we really can't guarantee doing pizza within two hours."

Yates said 24 hours is plenty of notice.

I first discovered the wonders of the community college catering company's Canadian bacon and black olive pizza - my favorite topping, dating back to childhood in Spokane - when a visiting Washington State University professor spoke to a group of us reporters out at the ATEC Building.

It was the kind of pizza which will haunt your dreams, being so real you could taste it until you wake up and find you've been nibbling on your pillow for the last half-hour. Which is almost worse than being chased by an unseen thing, heading in for a pop quiz I haven't studied at all for or having Carmen Electra call up and say she just wants to be friends.

Since then I've made the call several times, placing an order on Thursday or even earlier, with the expectation I'll pick up the pizza Friday afternoon after work. There was one fun time my pizza pick-up time corresponded with breaking news, but fortunately they were still open later when I was done, so the story has a happy ending and a warm pizza.

The food's better than good, but one is also paying for the experience and the spectacle.

Because how often does the opportunity arise to make an attempt to control your fate and place an order for a meal with one day's notice, other than at home by buying groceries or calling a gourmet restaurant and ordering the really fancy item on the menu which requires extra preparation?

And when I have friends come to visit this spring, I'm planning on calling and placing an order the day before, hopefully to coincide their arrival with the time to go and pick it up.

It's something a little different to do, and it provides my visitors with one more sampling of a locally created flavor.

For more information or to order, call 509-793-2380.

Matthew Weaver is the Columbia Basin Herald business and ag reporter. He also entertains us with his regular Friday column "Matthew Weaver in his Natural Habitat." Odd? Yes. Entertaining? Always. Someday we might have to buy him a pizza as thanks.